1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector for a flat connection member such as a flexible printed circuit or cable (FPC), a flexible flat cable (FFC) and so forth. All of these cables and circuit hereafter will be generally referred to as “FPC” for simplification.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrical connectors for connecting an FPC basically comprise an insulator defining an FPC receiving cavity, a plurality of conductive contacts arranged in the insulator and having contact portions exposed in the FPC receiving cavity, and an actuator rotatably mounted with respect to the insulator and the contacts. The FPC is inserted into the receiving cavity with Zero Insertion Force to a predetermined position and then is urged to establish electrical connection with the contact portions by the rotated actuator. To retain the FPC in the receiving cavity and maintain the electrical connection between the FPC and the contacts, an FPC retention force is required. The FPC retention often is provided by friction between the FPC and the contacts pinching the FPC or the actuator pressing on exterior surface of the FPC. However, this friction is often deficient in supplying a retention force enough for resisting unintentional pull, especially in connectors wherein the retention force is only supplied by the friction between the FPC and the contacts pinching it. An electrical connector of this type can be seen in U.S. patent application Publication No. 20040023551 (Suzuki et al.) which comprises a plurality of conductive contacts each having two opposing contact beams, namely an upper and a lower contact beams, defining an FPC receiving space therebetween. After the FPC is inserted into the receiving space, an actuator is operated to urge the opposing contact beams to pinch the FPC thereby to establish electrical connection between the contacts and the FPC. Inherent with such design, the actuator cannot press on the exterior surface of the FPC. Thus, the FPC retention is merely capable from the pinching effects of the contact beams. Thus a need exists to develop more retention force than is capable from the pinching effects of the contacts alone.
There is an electrical connector of above-mentioned type intending to obtain more FPC retention. The connector further comprises a locking system including a pair of locking pins protruding from two longitudinal outermost portions of the actuator (at positions to avoid the upper contact beams) and a pair of locking holes defined in the FPC at corresponding positions. When the actuator is rotated to a horizontal position, the locking pins engage with the locking holes, thereby supplying additional retention mechanism. However, as the FPC is rather thin, when the locking pin engages with the edge of the locking hole, the FPC portion in back side of the hole (to the rear of the hole edge) without support from its upper surface will flex and move out of the way because it is not rigid enough. There is an effort to design the plastic actuator with features functioning as the metallic locking pins. However, a forced withdrawal of the FPC is still apt due to shearing action of the FPC upon the plastic features.
Therefore, a new FPC connector is desired to overcome the disadvantages of the prior arts.